LLMs don't care about your backlinks

Backlinks are losing power. Your brand is taking over.

Here’s how I see it playing out:

AI agents like GenSpark, Manus, Perplexity, and Deep Research are getting scary good at crawling. They don’t just crawl links—they understand content.

They don’t need to check backlinks to know if a source is legit.
They scan your videos, your tweets, your content footprint—and instantly determine authority.

So if you're still playing the old SEO game of “build links and wait,” you’re falling behind.

Here’s what to do instead:

1. Build your brand signal
This is what LLMs care about.
If your name consistently appears in high-quality content across the web, you become a trusted entity.

2. Use your real name as the author
An anonymous blog post with decent info won't stand out. But a post with your name (and reputation) on it? Double whammy.
LLMs will index that, remember it, and reward it.

3. Lean into content saturation
Yes—listicles are back.
But it’s not just about volume. It’s about who is publishing them. If you're a well-known brand sharing helpful content, the algorithm (whether human or AI) takes notice.

4. Understand the speed
These AI agents crawl and rank in real-time. They're not waiting for Google updates. They're deciding now.

The game isn’t just about links anymore.
It’s about legitimacy. Reputation. Authority.

That means personal brand = SEO strategy.

To staying ranked,
Eric Siu

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